Denver Botanic Gardens' School of Botanical Art and Illustration is designed to teach the skills necessary to portray plants accurately both for scientific purposes and for beautiful plant illustrations. The school is open for everybody, both for committed illustrator and enthusiastic amateur. The program can lead to a Certificate that is offered only a few locations worldwide. The Certificate Program was initiated and established in 1990 by Angela Overy.

It takes a gifted artist to become a great teacher and those who dare to teach never cease to learn.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

In the 17th century a fanatical interest in horticulture caused wealthy collectors to buy tulip bulbs for extraordinary amounts of money. The Persian poets were praising their beauty as early as on the 12th century. This spring several of our courses focused on tulips, the
symbols of devotion and love. Tulip Mania class studied the history of tulips in
Europe and concentrated on watercolor techniques combined with graphite.

Today
we have over 3000 different varieties of tulips and 87 accepted species.

See some works from our tulip mania and other tulip inspired
courses by clicking here.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Denver Botanic Gardens has many years included in their annual plant sale Container-in-a-Bag plant groupings based on the color palettes of famous artworks. This year our students simplified and slightly stylized the plant selections which normally are shown by photographs. This gave the students an opportunity to compose and draw small compositions to show gardeners what to expect. They also learned how to work to specs, including following templates, adhering to style and color requirements, and meeting deadlines.

One of the illustrated tiles was selected to the final Container-in-a-Bag label, see all the designs by clicking here.

(The final Edgar Degas' Label, plant #5 by Angela Tingle)

Monday, May 15, 2017

On Saturday morning we visited the Berlin Museum of Medicinal History at the Charite. At the end of the 19th century, Rudolf Virchow created one of the largest collections of pathological-anatomical specimens. He wanted to provide specimens of healthy and diseased organs to improve the education among physicians, students and even the public for every known illness, and to also show what was under the human skin. The museum opened in 1899 and included about 35000 specimens. A great number of collections were lost during WW II, only some 1800 specimens survived without greater damage. In 1998 the Museum at Charite was reopened to the public. The former Rudolf Virchow Lecture Hall was also destroyed at the very end of the war, the ruins were preserved and now form a unique atmosphere for scientific gatherings and other events.

In this unique museum we could view not only 300 years of medicinal history starting from the time when the Charite was established as a plague hospital (around 1700), but also patient treatment history. With the help of our excellent guide (a medicine historian) we were able to view the 750 piece specimen collection and documentation of the founder's views of health, illness and the course of diseases. This was very interesting and educational - no photos could be taken.

On Saturday evening we had an exceptional opportunity to enjoy a sold-out concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with the guest conductor Mariss Jansons (chief conductor of Royal Concertgebow in Amsterdam). It was an unforgettable experience be among the 2440 others and listen to Sibelius, von Weber and Mahler with one of the world's greatest orchestras (ranked as #2 after the Royal Concertgebow in Amsterdam). The concert building by Hans Scharoun was inaugurated in 1963 and still is one of the most impressive and significant spatial creations of the 20th century in the whole world.

Entombment of Mary by Giotto di Bondone, 1310. This painting is Giotto's finest demonstration of his skills and deep philosophical understanding of religious events. Giotto was also one of the first artists to implement perspective.

“Voided Void,” or
Holocaust Tower is a part of the Libeskind building at the Jewish museum in Berlin. Daylight penetrates the
tower only through a narrow slit in the unheated concrete silo and any exterior
sounds are heavily muffled by the walls.

This was the end of our 2017 Arts and Archives Tour, another inspirational and successful trip. We were fascinated with the science history in both Copenhagen and Berlin, and also the current architecture, infrastructural efficiency, friendliness, the very moving WW II legacy, and so on.
Next year we'll return to Europe, to the south of Spain (Grenada and Seville) and Amsterdam.

Monday, May 8, 2017

In Summer 1945 Harry Truman, Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill met at the Cecilienhof Palace for the Potsdam conference. The very famous photo of the Big Three was taken right at this point.

The goal of the Arts and Archives Tours is not only to familiarize the participants with the science documentation and cultural history
but also some of the political history of the nations that we visit. For centuries Potsdam has played an important role
in German history and we visited this historical town, now UNESCO World Heritage
Site, for one day. The day was a successful sightseeing experience
and a teaser to return when more time is available.

Neues Palace on the western side of Sanssouci park. The building was begun in 1763, after the end of the Seven Years' War, under King Frederick II (Frederick the Great) and was completed in 1769. It is considered to be the last great Prussian baroque palace.

Berlin
Botanical Garden was originally developed by the Great Elector of Brandenburg,
Frederick William as a model agricultural garden in 1679. In 1879 a Botanical
Museum was created to house and promote research on the continuously growing
collection. It is today the second largest botanical garden in the world with
an area of 43 hectares (126 acres) and ca 22000 plant species. In 1995 the
institution became part of the Freie Universität Berlin.

Carl Ludwig Willdenow's Album Amicorum from the latter part of the 18th century. Willdenow was the director of the Berlin Botanical Garden from 1801 until 1812. He formed the basis for the herbarium and library.

During the
bombings of WWII the Museum lost 90% of its herbarium collections, 99% of the
library and 100% of the rare collections. The rebuilding started 1957 and the
museum and herbarium today includes the Willdenow Herbarium, Bridel Herbarium,
spirit collection, gymnosperm cone collection, fruits and seed collection, wood
collection, gall collection, plant remnants from Egyptian tombs (G.
Schweinfurth Collection), collections of resins and plant fibres, and DNA bank.

The museum has
a large herbarium of about 3.6 million preserved specimens in 24 herbarium
rooms, and the library includes 300000 books (on some 9.5 km of book shelves).
The Garden publishes two periodicals, Willdenowia and Englera.

Dr. Kilian gave
us an enlightening presentation of the history of the Garden and Museum, a tour
of the library and Herbarium, showed a collection of rare and antique books
with botanical illustrations, and explained how botanical illustrations have
been a part of the botanical sciences through the millennia.

The oldest herbarium at the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Museum. The individual plants are attached on the pages of a bound book, This book-herbarium is from 1660.